CINV and Science–Territory in Valparaíso

A small embodied experiment before talking about neuroscience

Before continuing, try something simple.

Close your eyes for a few seconds.

Now imagine two places.

The first:
a closed laboratory, silent, full of instruments and computers.

The second:
a coastal city with hills, stairs, sea wind, and people walking through the streets of Valparaíso.

Now ask yourself:

Where does science really happen?

Perhaps the answer is: in both places.

And this bridge between laboratory and territory is exactly what is beginning to emerge in the work of the
Centro Interdisciplinario de Neurociencia de Valparaíso (CINV) in Chile.

CINV and Science–Territory in Valparaíso

When science meets the city

In recent years, the CINV has developed collaborations with the Municipality of Valparaíso, aiming to connect scientific research with the local community.

The idea goes beyond science communication.

It reflects something deeper:

doing science connected to the territory where life actually unfolds.

This includes questions such as:

• scientific education

• mental health in urban environments

• perception of public space

• collective well-being

These initiatives align with a broader movement in contemporary science known as situated knowledge, where research is developed in interaction with social and cultural contexts rather than in isolation.

Experiment 1 — The brain perceives the city

Now imagine walking through Valparaíso.

The city is famous for its:

• steep hills

• long stairways

• historic funiculars

• narrow streets

• panoramic ocean views

Each of these elements demands constant adjustments from the body:

balance
attention
spatial orientation
memory of routes.

Research in spatial neuroscience shows that brain regions such as the hippocampus and parietal cortex are central to navigation in complex environments (Ekstrom et al., 2018; Epstein et al., 2022).

Cities like Valparaíso therefore function as natural laboratories of spatial cognition.

The brain is constantly learning from the structure of the territory.

Experiment 2 — Territory regulates emotions

Now imagine another comparison.

A person living in a neighborhood where:

• people know each other

• public spaces are accessible

• community interactions occur daily.

Now compare this with someone living in an urban environment marked by fragmentation and social isolation.

The brain responds differently.

Recent research in environmental neuroscience shows that urban and natural environments can influence neural systems related to stress regulation, attention, and emotional processing (Bratman et al., 2022).

This means that cities are not only physical structures.

They are also neuropsychological environments.

Experiment 3 — The city as a network of minds

A city is more than architecture.

It is a network of people interacting continuously.

Conversation, cooperation, conflict, and learning shape collective behavior.

Research in social neuroscience and hyperscanning has shown that interacting individuals can exhibit synchronized neural dynamics during shared activities (Czeszumski et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2023).

At a larger scale, this raises an intriguing hypothesis:

cities may function as ecosystems of distributed intelligence.

In such systems, cognition does not belong only to individuals but also emerges from interactions among people.

Why CINV matters in this landscape

The Centro Interdisciplinario de Neurociencia de Valparaíso (CINV) has become one of the most important neuroscience centers in Latin America by promoting interdisciplinary integration across:

• neuroscience

• biology

• psychology

• education

• science communication

By linking research with the city and its communities, the CINV represents an emerging direction in neuroscience:

studying the brain within the real environments where human life unfolds.

This perspective resonates with broader approaches in contemporary neuroscience that emphasize the interaction between:

• brain

• body

• environment

• culture.

A final experiment

Return to the beginning of this text.

Imagine Valparaíso again.

The hills.

The stairways.

The ocean.

Now imagine scientists, students, and residents discussing how the mind interacts with the city.

Perhaps initiatives like those at CINV are pointing toward something important:

science does not need to remain confined within laboratory walls.

It can emerge at the intersection of knowledge, community, and territory.

And when science meets territory, new questions about the human mind begin to appear.

References

Bratman, G. N., et al. (2022). Nature and mental health: An ecosystem service perspective. Science Advances.

Czeszumski, A., Eustergerling, S., Lang, A., et al. (2020). Hyperscanning: A valid method to study neural inter-brain underpinnings of social interaction. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

Damasio, A. (2021). The feeling of life itself and the construction of consciousness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

Ekstrom, A. D., Spiers, H. J., Bohbot, V. D., & Rosenbaum, R. S. (2018). Human Spatial Navigation. Princeton University Press.

Epstein, R. A., Patai, E. Z., Julian, J. B., & Spiers, H. J. (2022). The cognitive map in humans: Spatial navigation and beyond. Nature Neuroscience.

Henrich, J. (2020). The WEIRDest People in the World. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Liu, D., et al. (2023). Inter-brain synchronization during social interaction. Nature Human Behaviour.

Valdes, J. L., et al. (2021). Neuroscience development in Latin America: Challenges and opportunities. Frontiers in Neuroscience.